


A Brand New You

by Swordy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demon Dean, Episode Tag, Gen, Mark of Cain, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 20:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3302726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swordy/pseuds/Swordy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mark of Cain is still there and Dean's getting desperate. Inspired by the shot at the start of 'About a Boy' of Dean's laptop where he's looking at scar removal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Brand New You

**Author's Note:**

> **Rating:** PG-13
> 
>  **Genre/pairing:** Gen
> 
>  **Spoilers:** Episode tag for Season 10, Episode 12 'About a Boy'.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Bad language, graphic violence.
> 
>  **Word count:** 1,645
> 
>  **Author's note:** Unbetaed so all mistakes are mine. I loved this ep and knew there would be lots of teen Dean episode tags so I was happy to sit this one out. Then I saw that shot of Dean's laptop, and I knew I had to write about it. This is completely and utterly for becc_j and she damn well knows why. I'm just sorry it's not a more cheery gift.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** Sadly not mine (unlike the mistakes).

There’s blood.

More than a lot – closer to ‘shit-loads’, in fact. It’s the kind of amount where nobody bothers to check for pulses. People have been obliterated, eviscerated. There’s blood on things, in things, under things. There’s a picture of the Grand Canyon on the wall and there’s blood _behind_ that. When someone finds it, they’ll stare at it for a few minutes and say ‘how the fuck did _that_ get there?’

In the middle of this scene is the man who re-decorated everything in red. He has a knife and a symbol burned into his arm that forces him to view life through a filter of never-ending violence. He’s breathing hard, sweating, but completely serene. His heart rate can be described as ‘resting’. It starts to increase when the filter falls away, a curtain drawn back to reveal the unexpected surprise.

Into this fray steps another man. His face is filled with horror at what he sees – an entirely normal reaction given that three dead bodies litter the floor and walls in so many pieces that it seems like there could be more. His horror gives way to devastation because the architect of this monstrosity is the most important person in the world to him – a person that he’s crossed the line for so many times, the expression has lost all meaning, and the line may as well be a figment of the imagination.

He moves so that the other man can see him. It’s never crossed his mind that one day the knife could be turned on him. It’s foolish to think he’s protected by love, because an abstract concept such as affection makes for shitty armour. The mark that his brother carries has no attachment to him, which is fair enough really considering he’d eradicate it in a heartbeat if he could. Acrimonious relationships never end well, after all.

He calls his brother’s name, but Dean is already back in the room. His lack of response is due to the way his eyes are growing larger and flicking around the scene rapidly, revulsion consuming his features. He tries again, but clearly nothing is getting past the deafening roar of _I did this, I did this._

“Dean?” he says again. “Are you with me, man?”

The other man inhales sharply through his nose. 

“What the fuck?” is the muttered response, eyes now moving down to the knife in his hand. He suddenly looks as if he’s holding a scalding hot pan that he can’t let go of. 

“Oh God, Sam. What the fuck have I done?”

It’s clearly all starting to come back to him, the realisation like a hammer blow. These aren’t supernatural creatures or even scumbag loan sharks. They’re innocent people – or at least they _were_ – and their only mistake was to have a job that has brought them into contact with Dean Winchester and his deadly co-pilot.

“Come on,” Sam says, his voice sounding reed-thin as he glances around, expecting to hear the arrival of cops at any moment. “We need to go.”

“They were only trying to help me,” his brother says numbly. “They said they could help.”

He remembers them all – the pretty young receptionist who had handed him the form and a clipboard to lean on while he filled it in, her fingers brushing his just for a moment; the nurse who had offered him reassurances that they dealt with nervous patients like him _all the time_ ; the doctor who had smiled and nodded as he explained how surgery, with some follow up radiotherapy sessions could almost certainly remove the unusually-shaped keloid scar from his arm for good.

He thought he’d taken precautions – his anxious patient act had convinced them to fully sedate him rather than perform the procedure with local anaesthetic only. He remembers the pre-med, the cannula being inserted into his hand, the rapid icing over of his veins as the anaesthetic slithered up his arm. Most of all he remembers the hope. _When I wake up, it’ll be gone and it’ll all be over._

He realises now how naive he was. The Mark would never let him go that easily - he’d considered that - but he’d assumed the danger would be to him. Now, the workforce of the Skin and Laser Surgery Clinic lay dead around him, _because_ of him and him alone – the guilty indelibly stained with the blood of the innocent.

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam repeats. He realises Dean is crying now, if the only criteria for crying is the tears that are rolling down his brother’s face, because he’s not actually making any noise. 

“We can’t do anything for them. We need to go.”

His brother looks at him now, desolation in his eyes. 

“You gotta kill me, Sammy. If I come back, then exorcise me - send me to Hell. It’s all I deserve.”

“No, Dean,” he starts, the old protests ready on his lips, because it’s taken him this long to realise that he can’t live without his brother and he’s not about to let Dean go now, even after this. 

“But this isn’t you, it’s the Mark. Once we’ve gotten rid of it-”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean growls in despair. “The Mark’s on _me_. I’m responsible and I’ve gotta pay. If you don’t kill me then I’ll get Cas to do it. It needs to end, Sammy. It’s already gone too far.”

He holds out the bloodstained knife. His hand is shaking. 

“Do it!” Dean yells, his voice cracking. “Do it for me, Sammy. _Please_ , I’m begging you.”

Dean does start to sob now. Sam’s about to say something because this Dean is a million times more terrifying than the cold, detached monster the Mark has turned him into, but his attention is drawn by the sounds of sirens. Deep down, he _knew_ someone would have called the cops – people don’t die the way these people have without screaming. 

Sam realises that he’s crying now. It’s all going to end here, one way or another. Part of him just wants the cops to burst in and gun them both down, but he knows this won’t solve anything. He’ll be dead, the Mark will bring Dean back and more innocent people will die. His brother doesn’t want this. He takes the knife.

“Remember the exorcism, Sam,” his brother says, and Sam closes his eyes because he doesn’t want to see the relief in Dean’s.

“I’m not coming back, you hear me? Not this time.”

The sirens are getting closer. Sam lunges and stabs, the blade piercing skin and muscle to find its target - the heart that Dean’s convinced he no longer has. He can feel his life draining from him and the only thing he can think is, _thank fuck_.

Dimly he hears the words of the exorcism and suddenly his entire body is on fire. It’s excruciating and beyond anything he knows he can endure. He wants to beg Sam to stop, to let the Mark heal him and then repay its generosity by continuing to look for a way to get rid of it, but the bodies on the floor and the blood on the walls and behind the picture of the Grand Canyon keep the words in his mouth. Hell awaits him and he deserves every last agony he’s going to get down there.

Then the Mark makes its last stand and suddenly Sam is beneath him, eyes wide with surprise as they drop to the knife now buried deep in _his_ chest. Sam is bleeding and dying, the exorcism forgotten as he goes into shock. The cops will be here in minutes and the thing that was Dean Winchester knows with all certainty that the body count will rise significantly before the night is out. This is the Mark, asserting its dominance, determined to prove who calls the shots around here, ensuring that his membership of Team Free Will is well and truly revoked.

Behind him a door opens and the cops spill into the room, the red walls now slightly purple with the flashing blue lights. They yell at him to drop the knife or they’ll shoot and he laughs. They’re gonna be _so fucking shocked_ when they fill him full of lead and then he gets right back up and rips them apart in the blink of an eye. And if one of them manages to call for backup... well he’ll just do the same again until there’s no one left to kill.

He turns and grins, savouring the look on their faces as his eyes flick to black. There’s no Crowley this time so there will be no stupid diversions, no howling at the fucking moon when all he really wants to do is kill. The first shot is fired, but it may as well be a starting pistol for the race that will only ever have one winner.

The red room is about to get redder.

OoOoO

Dean wakes with a jolt. He realises that he’s been asleep sitting on the floor of his bedroom, the lore book that was resting open across his lap has slid to the floor. His back hurts, but he’s consumed by both relief and fear. He’s still in the bunker – this prison with no locks – so no one has died. The first thing he does is reach for the laptop and closes the window that displays the website of the Skin and Laser Surgery Clinic.

Scar removal. He’d laugh at how desperate he’s gotten, but the dream is still too vivid and the possibility of it becoming a reality grows with each passing day. If there’s an answer to removing the Mark, then he’s not going to find it at the end of a toll-free number.

He picks up the book and starts reading.

**End**


End file.
